The use of postage indicia in place of traditional postage stamps has become widespread. For example, solutions for generating and printing valid postage indicia using a home or office processor-based system, such as a personal computer, have been provided by Stamps.com Inc., Los Angeles, Calif. (the assignee of the present application) for a number of years.
Such solutions have facilitated ad hoc generation and printing of postage indicia, such as to generate and print individual postage indicia for a particular mail item. For example, during or upon completion of a letter or other document in a word processing application, such as WORD available from Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Wash., a user may utilize client software provided by Stamps.com Inc. to generate and print valid postage indicia for use in posting that document, and the generated indicia may include information linking the postage indicia to that document.
The foregoing solutions have additionally facilitated batch generating and printing of postage indicia, such as to generate and print plural postage indicia for later use with various mail items. For example, a user may utilize client software provided by Stamps.com Inc. to generate and print a sheet of “generic” postage indicia for use with mail items similar to how a more traditional sheet of stamps may be used. Such generic postage indicia are not linked to a particular mail item; thus, the indicia would not include information linking the postage indicia to the mail item. Such indicia may, however, include information identifying the user creating the postage indicia, the user's account used in creating the postage indicia, etc.
In these traditional on-demand postage systems, customers are traditionally required to buy postage value and keep a meter balance before they can generate and print postage. As indicia data is generated (e.g., by a postage server in an Internet based system), the postage value is immediately deducted from their balance. Thus, customers are charged for the indicia postage value before the indicia is printed.
Although providing a convenient solution for offering valid postage indicia to individuals and businesses upon demand, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, the foregoing solutions may not address every situation. For instance, a mail item shipper may need to print many indicia over the course of a day but not want to pay for the postage value of the indicia at the time of printing. For example, in order to increase shipping efficiency, shippers often pack and prepare mail items (for example purchased merchandise) for shipment throughout the day. However, affixing postage indicia to a package which may never be shipped, assuming payment confirmation for the merchandise is not received, could be costly. Postage indicia comprise monetary value; thus, if the box bearing the indicia is discarded, the monetary value of the indicia is likewise discarded. The shipper may attempt to salvage the indicia by removing the indicia and placing it on another package; however, if the shipper is printing the type of indicia that comprises information about its associated mail item, as explained above, the indicia may not be used with a different package because the indicia information and the different package information will not match up. Accordingly, because the indicia may not be transferable to a different package, the postage value is lost. Further still, even if the shipper utilizes the generically printed indicia described above (e.g. indicia not linked to a particular package), attempts to remove an indicia from a package may cause irreparable damage to the indicia such that the indicia cannot be used after removal. Again, the postage value would be lost. Moreover, the time necessary to track and remove postage indicia from packages could offset any time or money saved by fully preparing the packages before payment confirmations were received. Thus, a solution is desirable that allows a shipper to fully prepare shipments throughout the day, including affixing valid postage indicia, while avoiding the loss of postage value for unshipped packages.
Similarly, a user sending several letters and/or packages a day must pay for an appreciable amount of postage value, and it is desirable for a user to control when and if he is charged for postage indicia. For example, a shippers that fill orders (e.g. an online retailer) may need to ship several packages to the same recipient. Often, the boxes will be packaged at different times but need to be shipped together. Thus, the shipper may want to prepare complete packages (including attached postage indicia) as they go but may not want to pay for the postage indicia until all the boxes are ready to be shipped.
Furthermore, many shippers ship a large number of packages a day and may need to purchase hundreds or thousands of dollars of postage in a month. Traditionally, as explained above, the shipper would need to maintain a balance in a postage account to cover the cost for postage. Thus, if the shipper anticipates needing between $50,000 and $150,000 worth of postage, the shipper would need to maintain a balance of at least that much postage in his account to ensure he can print the needed postage. Thus, a method is desirable that obviates the need to tie up appreciable sums of money in a postage account in anticipation of possible shipment orders.
Moreover, a mail item mailer may need to purchase postage indicia while away from his indicia printing system (e.g. while traveling). The mailer may wish to send a postcard which requires less postage value than traditional first class one ounce stamps or may want to send a package weighing more than one ounce and therefore requires more postage value than a traditional first class stamp. Typically, only a particular denomination of postage stamp (e.g., stamps valued for one ounce first class postage, which today is $0.44) is available at most points of sale, such as retail locations outside of a postal facility. Moreover, retail locations often do not carry a deep stock of postage in order to avoid having appreciable monies tied up in an item usually provided for patron convenience and which runs a risk of becoming stale with a change in postal rates. Accordingly, if postage is available at all at a point of sale, it is often not available in an exact denomination desired by a user. Thus, it would be desirable for a system to provide for the sale of printed tokens which could be assigned any postage value at the point of sale so that a retailer could offer indicia carrying any amount of postage value and is relieved from tying up money in postage indicia.
The shipments discussed above involve delivery entities that require the use of postage indicia as proof of payment for postal services such as the United States Parcel Service (USPS). Other delivery entities, for example United Postal Service of America, Inc. (UPS) and FedEx Corporation (FedEx), operate in a different manner. When using one of these distinct delivery entities, package shippers print shipping labels that include no postage indicia and therefore carry no postage value. When preparing shipping labels, the shippers go to a processing screen, where they “close” their shipments and prepare any forms necessary. This step confirms which packages they are shipping and may be used later to create a customer bill when the customer's balance becomes due. When creating a customer's bill, the customer is not charged for shipping labels because shipping labels hold no monetary value. Rather, the delivery service charges the user for shipping services actually rendered. Therefore, users often print a particular label multiple times to keep track of services rendered and for accounting purposes (e.g. filing the label away for the user's records, sending the label to accounting for reimbursement, compiling the labels to compare against future bills received, etc.).
These valueless shipping labels are distinct from postage indicia and labels comprising postage indicia, because with postage indicia, the customer is purchasing and paying for the indicia itself (or the label comprising the postage indicia). Furthermore, the indicia itself comprises monetary value. Accordingly, the postage indicia itself has value (i.e. postage value) such that the user is charged for the postage indicia (or the label comprising postage indicia) whether or not the user mails a mail item. Thus, because each indicia holds value, to prevent fraud, users are traditionally prevented from printing multiple copies of a particular indicium. Furthermore, because each indicia holds value, the loss, destruction, or theft of a postage indicium results in the loss of monetary value.